Good news, folks! I'm bringing blogging back! Because when God decides to throw some tough battles, He assigns them to His sharpest minds.

So here I am, pecking away at my keyboard for a solid 20 minutes each night, right after the edible kicks in.

A new album from Top 5 is out now. It’s called ‘Pedro Activated’ and it’s full of menacing yet poorly mixed piano keys racing around a track, populated by lyrics featuring threats of violence. The decent guest features that carry the project, but it’s less of a cohesive album than it is a collection of loosies that never got released. This is evident by the fact he’s dissing rappers like Booggz, a rival Toronto rappers Top 5 had history with years ago but who has since more or less retired from rap. There’s actually multiple references to Booggz, including “21 Questions” with G Herbo which is the lead single and has already made the news for its unique shooting location. Like most things Top 5 does, the lore surrounding the art is more interesting than the art itself.

Top 5 is a Toronto rapper who currently sits in jail awaiting trial for being an accessory to a murder in Toronto. He was extradited from Los Angeles, where he fled to after cutting off his ankle monitor upon being released on bail.

The Top 5 of 2023 stands in stark contract to the one I interviewed eight years ago (I’ve included the interview at the bottom of this post). It’s enough to make me wonder: Has Toronto turned the world into a wicked place since 2015?

Usually, when a headline ends with a question mark, the answer tends to be a "no" but we like to spice things up around here.

Let's take a trip down memory lane, spanning the past eight years (or, hoenstly, since 2010 when “Baby” by Bieber made its grand entrance on the top of billboard). During this time, Toronto's artists have had a stranglehold on the charts, a historic domination not seen since The Beatles. If you've been listening to music since Obama stepped into the spotlight, chances are you've been grooving to the tunes of a Torontonian. And that's pretty damn impressive, considering music is one of the few things that remain monocultural. None of the streaming platforms that popped up during this period have become as massive a cultural icon as Drake, Biebs, or The Weeknd.

Naturally I'll mainly focus on Drake. As much fun as it would be to dunk on ‘The Idol’ in the process, Drake’s influence has resulted in the greatest net negative to society.

In 2023, as we live through the tail end of Drake’s dominance, enough time has passed for us to appreciate how dominant he really was in the pre-Daytona era. It was historic, he really did set the trends. The fact that he was at the top of the mountain is only made more impressive by the fact that he got there by riding waves in a calculated slalom of trend forecasting. Hipster R&B Drake beget Mafia Boss Drake, who beget Dancehall Papi Drake who beget Roadman Drake. These all seem like memes in hindsight, but you really do need to credit the man for having the foresight to catch and adapt to each of these trends in music.

While on his rise, Drake tried to spread the wealth to the rest of the city. In 2015, around the time of the Meek Beef and the Future collaborations, Drake would embrace the corners of Toronto that would give the city texture on the mental maps formed in people who had never visited. He’d post a Robin Banks lyric as an Instagram caption, recruit Roy Woods to his label, or post a picture of him watching Top 5’s music video. Unfortunately there’s just something rotten about Toronto that makes hate breed faster than any other emotion.

In the same way that Drake rode trends on his rise to the pinnacle, the artists came next and saw him as a blueprint decided to do the same. But the trends that followed were more violent than the ones Drake chose to adopt, as Brooklyn and Chicago Drill became the lodestar for the Top 5s of the world. Violence became the lingua franca in virality, as decided for us by the algorithms that began to ensnare. More than any other genre, rap depends on going viral.

So what’s a new rapper to do who wants to rise our of the trenches in the age of technology and interconnection? You either choose violence, or move to South Korea and compete to be a K-Pop star. Top 5 chose the former.

In a world where culture is fragmented and niche stars are born, rise to insane popularity, and scandalise themselves out of existence (or at least accept half-baked invites to be podcast guests*), music stands as the last true North American cultural export.

America's main soft power export used to be Hollywood, until rap music swooped in, probably around the time NWA burst onto the scene (thanks, Hollywood movie, for the history lesson). Over the years, rap music found its way into the hands of Canadians, who optimised it to have cross-gender appeal (I could argue that Drake's success gave rise to female rap, but won’t). Nowadays, Hollywood is merely three streaming services relying on an overworked CGI labour force, with a team that oscillates between unearthing fragments of your childhood nostalgia and turning Twitter drama into movie deals.

The reason music remains monocultural is simple: technology. There's no longer any friction between Drake releasing a new song and you listening to it. All it takes is a few taps on your phone, and voila! A Canadian man is calling you broke. Since everyone's life revolves around the online realm, that's where the main entertainment theater lies. Remember when the Netflix CEO claimed their biggest competitor was sleep? Well, social feeds, your inbox, your watch—they're all fighting for your precious attention now. You're not merely watching or reading something; you're absorbing experiences for the purpose of scraping them for future content.

What’s filling up those feeds? What's consuming the time that could be spent reading a novel? Most likely, it's political theater. Those issues that fringe groups thrust into the center stage of society overnight. Now, I won't name them because, frankly, I refuse to discuss them. Instead, let's talk about why we talk about them.

Violence is inherently entertaining. It's been that way since the dawn of mankind, when the Romans took breaks from passing little boys between each other like Pokemon cards to hit the coliseum. Modern America's cultural export since 2015 has become political violence. Maybe it's always been that way, but now that the world is more connected we get a 24/7 feed of the worst parts of humanity.

So if violence in music is explained by violence in technology, and the only thing we consume anymore is technology-based entertainment, artists like Top 5 are an unfortunate inevitability we have to live with. But the problem is that Top 5’s antics don’t come from the same life-or-death peril that befalls American rappers. He’s Canadian! He doesn’t have to be doing all of this. In fact, one of the best parts of “21 Questions” is where G Herbo raps about having seen dead bodies in the double digits before turning 20 years old, a turned up boast when compared to Top 5 bragging about shooting someone in the leg just a few verses prior.

Let me back up. Top 5 (post Drake cosign) went from taking pictures with NBA players after Raptor games when he’d wait outside the garage, to actively trying to become the biggest demon in the city. Even before the death of his brother Foolish, Top 5 was going on Instagram live and threatening anyone in Toronto who had anything but praise for the rapper. Many people saw him as a folk villain who played the role of instigator, but they couldn’t look away and tuned into his IG Lives in the thousands. He mocked the dead, threatened the living, and accidentally implicated himself in at least two shootings.

Many regard the era that Top 5 was active in to be the best era of local rap music Toronto had ever seen. From 2016-2018, starting with viral Youtube hits like “Dope Boy” or “Black Challenger,” leading up to the killing of Smoke Dawg, Toronto’s music scene produced some of the most exciting moments to come from the city. Pages like 6ixbuzz helped musicians reach masses, and tastemakers like DJ Akademiks began to pay attention to what was happening in Toronto even in the times when Drake’s jet wasn’t parked in Buttonville Airport.

Drake’s involvement would prove to act as the brewer’s yeast that would cause the alcohol to form in the sweet mash. In acting like the tough local ambassador, he took Smoke Dawg and Pressa on his ‘Boy Meets World’ tour in Europe, where the two of them would put their Toronto politics to the side as they focused on work. The toxicity of the city would grab onto both of them upon their return, and would eventually cost Smoke Dawg his life. This event would be recorded on Snapchat, and would become lore for rappers like Top 5 to mention tauntingly in future songs.

Toronto’s remarkable run in rap music starting around the same time society began it’s descent into madness is probably a coincidence, but if you ever needed proof that things have never been worse, just look at the fact that not even the best city in Canada is safe from the same from the societal impacts of the algorithms violent creep.

The worst part about it is that, in hindsight, Toronto’s run was closer to what we’re currently seeing in Detroit or Milwaukee than it ever was to New York or Chicago. The scene would prove to be nothing more than smoke an a collection of mirrors held up charismatic artists who would go on to move to California and write for more successful rappers. Houdini would be the only one who had the potential to break through, before his life was cut short over the same hateful fuel that runs through the streets of the city.

Drake's rise to stardom shares similarities with another Canadian export, Justin Bieber. Both of them fixated on America, studying its music industry with the precision of a surgeon. While Drake charted his course independently, aided by his OVO empire, Bieber found support in the capable hands of Scooter Braun. The paths they took may have differed, but their journeys led them to conquer the market. One wonders what the modern day version of each of those stars would look like in a world where you must turn to evil if you want to set yourself apart.

Maybe that’s why Drake doesn’t even claim his city with the same gusto he did in 2015. Toronto is full of weirdos and criminals (both proven by Top 5) that he hand in promoting. Yet he insists on partnering with Atlanta artists who instead of the local talent he groomed. The same day that Top 5’s album came out, Young Thug released his surprise tape, complete with two Drake features. Champage Papi posted about the Thugga album heavily, while Top 5 was left with a Tory Lanez song as a consolation prize.

It’s hard to feel any sort of sympathy for Top 5, which is part of the appeal in following his rise. There’s no two ways about it: He’s chopped. But he did it to himself, taking part in the alleged murder at the height of his popularity when he could’ve very simply just focused on making music and shooting one-man WWE promos on his Instagram live with a new victim each week. Instead, he’s currently awaiting trial at Maplehurst Correctional Facility.

However, let's not overlook the fact that violence and aggression have played a significant role in shaping rap as a genre. It's a double-edged sword, as the gritty authenticity that draws listeners can sometimes become a breeding ground for controversy and questionable behaviour. And in an age of hyperconnectivity, the impact of such violence is amplified, reaching far beyond local borders. It's a phenomenon that demands reflection, as we observe parallels between the violence unfolding in different corners of the world.

So, while Toronto's rap music scene may owe a debt to its American counterparts in terms of musical influence, it's crucial to acknowledge the complexities and consequences that come with it. The evolution of rap, the merging of cultures, and the inherent magnetism of violence—all these factors have contributed to Toronto's rise as a force to be reckoned with in the global music scene. But they’re also the reason Toronto’s death toll among rappers comes in greater numbers than the spots they’ve reserved on the Billboard charts.

• DaBaby, please come on Nersey

Anyway, here’s the interview with Top 5 from 2015 in full:

Slava P: When did you start taking your shirt off?

Hassan Ali: It all started in 2013 at the OVO Bounce tournament when Brandon Jennings took his shirt off. I was going to take a picture with him and then I decided to take off my shirt, and the whole crowd started going crazy. We posted that pic and since that day it’s been #shirtoffshawty. I took a picture with Drake with my shirt off and that was only my second time meeting Drake.

How did Drake hear about your music?

He knew me. He was asking “who is that kid with his shirt off?”

Then I went to a signing and we got to know each other and the friendship started. From then on we kept hitting each other up. He’s always been supportive of my hood and has friends there. He puts people up on Instagram from my hood and from that day on he’s been into my music.

I’m also close with OB O’Brien.

How did you get to know OB O’Brien? I thought he was from Hamilton?

No, he lives in Toronto. Anytime I see him he’s like, “Top 5 take your shirt off.” So, I knew Drake already watched the video that day.

Has Drake hit you up since he posted that picture?

He left me a picture, probably about two. I was talking to OB yesterday. I could have went to see Drake yesterday, but I decided to go to the restaurant. Did you take your shirt off at the restaurant? No [laughs] How did you get the name Top 5? That was my name when I use to play ball. Anything I use to do was Top 5. People used to look at me and be like “he’s top five this, top five that.”

So you’re into music seriously now? No more basketball?

Basketball is like, in high school you know if you're going to get into the NBA or not. I realized I didn't want to play ball. I took rapping as a joke in the beginning, but seeing Drake just all over it inspired me. I’m going to drop a couple songs and you’ll see who's all over it. Its going to be a surprise when you see this video.

When did you and Drake get to know each other?

The first time I saw Drake I didn’t know who he was. Like I knew who he was but I didn’t know if he was that nice guy or that mean guy. But when I took my shirt off and he jumped in the picture, from that day on, I swear he’s been watching me. He knows these streets. I’m going to drop a couple more songs and then you’ll know it’s official. That night when Drake put up my pictures I’ve never seen it like that. I love Drake he’s a cool guy for putting that out. I salute him I thank him for that, like I have a fan base but he gave me a bigger fan base.

So what kind of music do you listen to?

One artist I would love to make a song with is … people might hate me for saying this, but Chris Brown. I love listening to Chris Brown.

Who’s in your personal top five?

Number one is Drake. Number two I’d say is Chris Brown. Number three is, I know Chief Keef isn’t lyrical, but his personality makes the song good. And then Rihanna and Nicki Minaj.

Is there a certain demographic that you see gravitating towards your music?

I got older people listening to me now. I didn't have that before. I only had people my age. But now that I hit up schools for basketball or go to the movies, I have people run up and ask for a picture from me when I’m at Yorkdale Mall or at the Eaton Centre. The fanbase I have right now is good. I’m not hated on when I go places. Are you still in high school? Yeah, my last year in school is this year.

How was your day at school like after Drake posted the picture?

Everyone ran to me and was like “you’re my favourite. I want to see you perform at the BET awards!” This all happened the morning after, and I was kind of tired because I was up all night. My teachers came up to me and were like, “He’s gonna call up Drake.” More like five teachers came up to me. Drake went to Vaughan Road Academy; that’s the same school as me.

What's the easiest way to take your shirt off? Do you go arms through the sleeves first, or head first?

I take the whole thing off through the front. I have the girls go crazy at school. Before Drake I had a fanbase but it wasn't that crazy until Drake gave me props.